Downloading OS X Mavericks (10.9) in 2025

[sixxdog_uk]

Downloading OS X Mavericks (10.9) in 2025

So a little bit of background.....

I was playing about with some old Macs that I have one of which is a Mac mini (Late 2012) Macmini6,2 as detailed below.

On performing an internet recovery I was surprised to see that it was restoring OS X Mavericks 10.9 - which as far as I knew was not on the apple servers.

So after a bit of digging , I stopped the recovery and created an Image of the Base OS System.
Then by installing the OS to a USB but not allowing it to reboot , I had a USB called , Install Mac OS.

Between the two I was able to find the InstallESD.dmg and the full Packages Folder.

This SHOULD have been easy to restore the base system to a USB and the copy the packages over but , the InstallESD.dmg didn't have the hidden BaseOS.DMG file in the contents. (Weird)

So I grabbed the Base System from an old installer for Mavericks that I had , restored that , then copied the Packages , and that worked , a Mavericks Installer in 2025 , BUT , only with using an existing BaseOS.DMG.

Hopefully someone with better knowledge of apple installer partitions and layouts , can make something use of this.

ANYWAY......

But this got me thinking it MUST still be on the Apple Servers 'Somewhere"!!

So I dug out a old Mac mini (Mid 2011) MacMini5,1 and installed OS X Yosemite to it.
Installed the updates.
Logged into App Store Using my Credentials.
Found my previous download of OS X Mavericks
Pressed Download
Said Yes I wanted to download it , even though I had a newer OS installed.
And to my surprise it downloaded the Full 5.36GB Install OS Mavericks.app file.

After this it was a simple case of using one of the many methods to create a bootable installer.
The one I used was the --Createmedia option.

Conclusion : Yes you can download OS X Mavericks in 2025 , Method 1 : Use a compatible machine and faff about with Internet Recovery. or Method 2 : Use an old OS that shows Installers in your past purchases (I used Yosemite on a 2011 Mac mini) and hope you downloaded it from the App Store back in 2013 or whenever it was available.

Credit goes to my son Richey , who first stumbled across the Internet Recovery method.

Range Info​

Apple Range
Mac mini (Late 2012)

Family no.
A1347

EMC no.
2570

Parts for this Mac...

Model Info​

Configuration
Core i7 2.3GHz

Order no.
MD388LL/A

Machine ID
Macmini6,2

Introduced
23 Oct 2012

Discontinued
16 Oct 2014

Manufactured
18 Mar 2014 Quanta Computer, China (Susidiary = Tech Com)

Weight
1.220 kg

Dimensions
3.56 x 19.56 x 19.56 cm

Specifications​

CPU Speed
2.3 GHz

Processor
1 (4 Cores) x Core i7 (I7-3615QM)

Memory slots
2 x PC3-12800 DDR3

Built-in Mem
None

Max memory
16 GB

Battery
N/A

Original OS
X 10.8.1 (12B2080)

Last supported OS
Current

Graphics & Imaging​

Graphics proc
HD Graphics 4000 (512 MB)

2nd display
Dual/Mirroring

Max external resolution
2560x1600

Ports​

USB ports
4 (3.0)

FireWire ports
1 (800)

Ethernet
10/100/1000Base-T

Airport type
802.11a/b/g/n

Bluetooth type
4.0

Drives & Expansion​

Storage type
2.5" Serial ATA (6 Gb/s)

Capacity
1 TB HDD

Optical drive
None

Expansion
SD Card (SDXC)

 

[sixxdog_uk]

UPDATE : The InstallESD.DMG that is being downloaded from the AppStore seems to be be corrupt in some way , it might be a date issue??

 

[radow]

There is a great website "Mavericks Forever", you might want take a look. They have a script downloading Mavericks using the OS recovery server method.

Edit: related post in MacRumors Forum.

 

[sixxdog_uk]

Hi Radow , Thanks for your speedy reply , i’ll take a look at that ,the hope is to download mavericks from apples servers , just using the MacMini and some USB sticks , why? Well because Apple say we cant 🤣

I’ve learnt a lot about apples partitioning maps playing around with this though , so every day is a learning day.

Currently I’m grabbing the OS Base system from the Internet recovery using dd , who knows where this rabbit hole will take me.

Thanks again.

Sixx

 

[f54da]

>Currently I’m grabbing the OS Base system from the Internet recovery using dd

This is already reverse engineered and done.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/can-we-download-mavericks-directly-from-apples-servers.2444350/

 

[sixxdog_uk]

>Currently I’m grabbing the OS Base system from the Internet recovery using dd

This is already reverse engineered and done.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/can-we-download-mavericks-directly-from-apples-servers.2444350/

Yep , amazing work , looks like I was just a bit off the mark , but the write up and .sh script have at least taught me where I was going wrong.

Anyway many thanks everyone , sorry to have wasted anyone’s time 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

 

[Xde]

Date issue yes. We need to adjust the clock back before OS install. Example 2015.
To remember, Mavericks was all time on Apple servers, but not available for everyone.
Only the ones who have downloaded Mavericks sometimes in the past will have it available.
In my case, y have it in the store. So far.
But do I understand it correct, if one does an internet recovery with an old Mac, it appears then in the own Appstore, where it does not before?